Why do healers feel like they get a punishment for getting better.

[Urthdigger]

While I agree that redesigning the entire game is...awkward, you seem to sidestep the idea of making things unpredictable. The random mechanics/spawns/etc. would be simpler than the elaborate song and dance we have now, but the advantage is that there would be no fight timeline to follow, and you can actually emergency heal. No longer following a plan, the players are reacting, until the crisis is over.

Then again, people in this game sure love to dance to the plan, so getting something like this that is actually accepted as hardcore content is... hard.

Making things unpredictable would help less than you might think. Most healers I know already keep the tanks at a respectable level, and it's a simple enough matter to shift focus from DPS to heals when stuff pops up. Having the boss use AoEs, adds, and tankbusters randomly seems like it would help about as much as the occasional person failing to dodge. You crank up the heals for a moment, and then it's back to business as usual. The only possible way this would change would be stuff that hits fast enough back to back that one needs to save instant heals for those random spikes. I feel that'd change the dynamic less than one may think (A bit more GCDs spent on heals, but still most of them spent on damage), while also being needlessly stressful (being tensed up, ready to react at a moment's notice for 10+ minutes is going to wreak some serious havoc on people's nerves. Especially as I am also approaching this from the standpoint of dungeon and trial design, not just savage and ultimate.

[YusiKha]

While I agree that redesigning the entire game is...awkward, you seem to sidestep the idea of making things unpredictable. The random mechanics/spawns/etc. would be simpler than the elaborate song and dance we have now, but the advantage is that there would be no fight timeline to follow, and you can actually emergency heal. No longer following a plan, the players are reacting, until the crisis is over.

Then again, people in this game sure love to dance to the plan, so getting something like this that is actually accepted as hardcore content is... hard.

I wouldn't remove the scripting alltogether, that sounds like the perfect way to overcomplicate encounter design or remove all complexity from the mechanics. If you were talking about mechanics with random targets, then I can get behind that.

Though, if nontank targets are taking a lot of the hits and require single-target healing... Well, people are already complaining about AST's card targetting. This sounds like it could lead to the exact same thing.

[Billythepancake]

While I agree that redesigning the entire game is...awkward, you seem to sidestep the idea of making things unpredictable. The random mechanics/spawns/etc. would be simpler than the elaborate song and dance we have now, but the advantage is that there would be no fight timeline to follow, and you can actually emergency heal. No longer following a plan, the players are reacting, until the crisis is over.

Then again, people in this game sure love to dance to the plan, so getting something like this that is actually accepted as hardcore content is... hard.

There is nothing more frustrating as a healer than dealing with shit out of your control. I dont think I've raged harder than in ultimate when the boss randomly decides to do more damage and the tank dies despite me, my co-healer, and the tank all doing the same thing. The last thing I want is fights deciding to just start throwing curveballs all over the place so they can he "hard" that's not challenging it's annoying.

[tikiwiki]

I can't see how fixing the way a fight handles damage wouldn't fix this issue. Isn't a thing healers complaining about is nothing hurts? We know when everything hits etc? Change that. Cause asking SE to give healers DPS rotations isn't going to work. SE purposely wants healers to not be dps, it's why cleric stance is gone. They want the role to be easier for new players. Are they doing it wrong yes...but just giving healers DPS rotations isn't the answer. It's not like they had them in the first place. They had more dots but they didn't have a DPS rotation.. not like monk drg or ninja :c

so in the tea burn phase you mash your aoe heal with no thought thats why it wouldnt fix it its just the same issue as you see in most other content with a heal instead of a damage spell if you wanna continue mashing one button but have it say heal instead of damage fine your issue solved but i want thought behind my gameplay and adding in more dps skills like how scholars used to have so many dots solves that issue without a complete redesign of how healers and encounters work in this game.

[tikiwiki]

I dont think I've raged harder than in ultimate when the boss randomly decides to do more damage and the tank dies despite me, my co-healer, and the tank all doing the same thing.

crits were a "fun" mechanic

[Irenia]

Maybe. I've enjoyed myself in Eureka (monster chaining) and the higher floors on the Deep Dungeons as a healer, even though I failed a few times on both of them. I definitely do understand the urge to leave nothing to chance, but that design has its limits.

[tikiwiki]

Maybe. I've enjoyed myself in Eureka (monster chaining) and the higher floors on the Deep Dungeons as a healer, even though I failed a few times on both of them. I definitely do understand the urge to leave nothing to chance, but that design has its limits.

neither of those contents you mention have variance though just hard hitting autos so you spam heals

[Irenia]

Nah, the variance is in the monster spawns

[tikiwiki]

Nah, the variance is in the monster spawns

but the monster spawns make no difference in how you heal in deep dungeons and during chaining theres no variance you're killing one mob type

[Irenia]

but the monster spawns make no difference in how you heal in deep dungeons and during chaining theres no variance you're killing one mob type

Yes and no. It's all about intensity. In these scripted fights the intensity shifts while learning, but once learned it is just rote muscle memory. No ebb and flow. In Deep Dungeons, the moments before and after a spawn trap is triggered are *completely* different. I'm not just talking about healers. The shift is felt by everyone. Same in Eureka if someone accidentally pulls an off-type monster. Even letting the player just die away from the party changes things up. The group is at a momentary disadvantage, but it shifts the focus of the players in a way that Savage cannot, due to it being sudden and unpredictable.

Now I bring this up in regards to healers because it really seems like what newer players want from the game. One of my old FC mates would, whenever they played AST back before ShB, always attempt to start instances with an Ewer in the spread. They knew that AoE balance was preferable, but if they were able to use that Ewer in a moment of crisis, well, that was the feeling they were after playing a healer, and they savored it, even if it didn't do too much in the grand scheme of things. "Good thing I have Ewer," they would say.

And this is my hypothesis. Players that feel like that healing is less fun the better you get are chasing that Ewer feeling. The moments where the party is in control punctuated by moments where the party is in crisis, where your skill and gear are tested. But this game's design has it that good, experienced parties never have moments of crisis to be overcome. At a certain point, there isn't even any tension. Your victory is never in question - a forgone conclusion. If you die, it's not because the encounter is difficult and minor mistakes build up to your death. It's because one or two players just screwed up.

However, I do believe that this game can provide that tension if it tried. I just think that many players like the fact that good players never have to deal with a sudden crisis where the plan is useless and everyone is on their back feet, reacting to what is being thrown at them. Which then leads into current healer design favoring that playstyle more than the pre-planned dance one which is not great for the current game.

Hope this clarifies some things.